NOTE

As I continue to work on things away from this blog (which is a collection of Free-Time/Casual Online Writing, Remarks, And Notes By ME Whelan) and continue to figure out what goes and what stays of my existing online-writing, the de-emphasizing of one or another continues as well....

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Talking Too Much

The following is a transfer post and was previously on Bubblews. I'm posting it "as is".

This
post is one I'm copying from my Bubblews account. There are some
references to someone else's post(s) on Bubblews, and I'll eventually
edit this post to stand more on its own on here. In the meantime, I'm
posting it as is.

"Quote for Today: 'Don't Talk Too Much'"
After
reading a post by another Bubblews member. ("Quote for Today: 'Don't
Talk Too Much'"), which made points about how talking too much and
seldom listening often means never learning anything (among some other
disadvantages to "talking too much"); I thought I'd ponder the belief
(that a lot of people have) that talking "too much" is essentially a bad
thing.

The post asked readers whether they were
"talkers" or not. My short reply to that question is that I'm a
selective talker. On the one hand, I talk a whole lot in conversations
with close friends (and if I'm not talking I may be "talking a lot" by
writing). On the other hand, there has always been a whole lot that I
don't say and situations in which I remain completely silent (or else
speak only when someone asks me a question directly, in which case (at
least once I got past five years old when I wasn't above refusing to
respond to what seemed like "stupid" remarks to me) I reply. I pretty
much went through my entire secondary-school years completely silent in
class, believing that/expecting teachers to stand there, do a good job
of sharing the information, and otherwise don't expect me to participate
in talking. At the time, that was my idea of how learning should go
(and it sometimes went well with some teachers).

When
it wasn't going well (up to my "standards" with regard to "high-quality
information-sharing" I would, in my own mind, turn "useless" classroom
time into something that I valued as much as, or more than, whatever
wasn't being taught very well in any particular class; by having
"better" conversation with whoever was nearby and (apparently) also
seeing "socializing" as more valuable than the particular class. Let's
just say I saw myself as "making good use of time and materials" (sort
of). I've always been an efficient user-of-my-own time; and to this day,
the minute I sense someone or something is wasting my time (by, say,
taking some things too seriously or taking themselves too seriously or
otherwise seeming clueless in one way or another) I'll pretty much find
(or be found by) the nearest person who sees it as the
time-wasting/silly as I do; and start socializing ("whisper-socializing"
maybe, but socializing nonetheless). So, I am a talker and yet a
non-talker (but let's face it, sometimes not-talking only happens
because I write instead.)

The thing is, though, I'm a
verbal person and a person whose main focus leans more towards people
and relationships than anything else (those two things tend to go
together); and I'm a mother. Mothers can't afford to worry about how
unattractive or uncool not-talking is, or may be seen. While I certainly
see changes with regard to how many young men today (of my children's
generation) lean more toward being "tuned in" to relationships; until
fairly recently (and even now) being tuned into relationships and
socializing has often been associated more with girls and women than men
and boys.

Being a talker (or too "too much", at least
according to the opinion of a lot of non-talkers of the world) is not a
bad thing. The key is in not being a windbag and in being able to back
up what one says with solid facts; or at least knowing how to present
opinions/questions/concerns as nothing more than that. Another "key" is
in knowing not to "just think" something without looking more into very
solid, reliable, sources (particularly when talking to one's children;
and in other words, reading up on pertinent subjects and not just
spouting off about them when talking to kids who are old enough to check
out facts/information for themselves).

From the day
they're born, children (or even pets, for that matter) learn by having
someone who respects them and cares enough about them to talk to them a
whole lot more than, sometimes, one would think energy permits. And,
maybe one reason so many people have such an aversion to "talking too
much" is that they either didn't like what adults told them (either
because they were kids and didn't understand or else because they were
kids and wanted to do what they wanted to do - or else because they knew
adults were telling them "baloney").

The thing is,
though, that the mother/parent (person) who doesn't know enough to start
talking and keep talking (pretty much for all the time she'll ever be
someone's mother, and times how-ever many kids she has) can do a wide
range of damage to people and relationships. Something else is that
people can sometimes equate "talking" with one-way speaking; and someone
like me (a verbal person and very picky about word use) equates
"talking" with "two-way, personal, conversation" and "one-way talking"
as any number of other things entirely.

When I was a
kid I had the luxury of remaining silent and letting whoever in the
class it was who cared about being first to get the right answer and/or
cared about "looking enthusiastic" have whatever "glory" I thought it
was they wanted or needed. Also, I had the luxury of remaining silent
and letting whichever kids it was that liked asking questions either
because they HAD question or just liked hearing themselves pipe up.

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"Writing isn't always about just getting the words down, or out, or even read. It is about pulling from the universe just the right number and combination of words and allowing them to join hands to come to life."

Note I

As I continue to reorganize, trim down, consolidate, further develop, and/or otherwise work on any number of my own blogs/sites, there may be the occasional "No Page Exists" message on this blog. That's temporary and not something I can avoid at this stage in my reorganizing "project".

I've got my Google+ profile settings so that all but this blog and a couple of other things are hidden from the public. Because of that, but because I don't particularly want to keep some of my writing a big secret, I'm including a few links that will get anyone who may be at all interested to a page that is far less of an apparent dead end than my Google profile is right at this time. Here's one link:

In order to keep this "explanatory note" relatively brief, I'll write a post (February 21, 2016) to further make it clear what I'm doing with this blog. My plan is to revise and/or delete this note in the very near future, when it no longer seems necessary to include it (or parts of it).

Because I've transitioned from having once used a pen-name to (in more recent times) using my real name, I'm also including a link to my "pen-name blog".

"The Writing-Reorganizing Project Continues" is the title of the February 21, 2016 post, to which I referred above.

Note II

What's On This Blog

This blog, as its title suggests, is a collection of online writing and random notes/thoughts of its author. Since material posted on or before February 21, 2016 has been imported from a number of my other sites/blogs there's a little bit of clean-up that still needs to be done on those posts, particularly with regard to some formatting issues. I'll be working on improving the presentation of the older posts. There won't (or at least shouldn't) be any issues with material posted on or after the date mentioned here.

Note III

The following is a transfer from another one of my blogs/sites. It appears more attractively presented elsewhere, but I've chosen not to link to that because a) I don't want this blog to be a "dreaded" "doorway page", and b) I'm trying to "bury" (without completely deleting, at least for now) some of the sites where posts already appear. It know there are easier, more automated, ways to transfer material, but with a large variety and number of different types of material to be transferred, I've found that in some instances "more automated" means "further, even if relatively minor, complicating things". In other words, I have a real online mess on my hands. I don't want more of the same, which, for my purposes/aims, often means limiting the "automating".

For now, I'll mark transfer posts as such. (Oh, and way at the bottom of the blog there's a link to the latest incarnation of an old blog. The link is there for my own convenience as I work on things here Links on this sidebar are old stuff. I'll do something with links to new stuff some other time.)

.

OTHER WRITING

"Other Writing" is a post title (and label) I've used on two posts ("Other Writing A" and "Other Writing B") with links to a big mix of (what else) other writing I have that falls under the category of "free time" or "casual" online. There's also a third post related to other writing, and that describes what much of that "other writing" is and why I included the other-writing-related posts, all of which are dated February 24, 2016.

(In a nutshell, I want those links available on here but don't want to highlight them.)

ABOUT 'WORDCRAFTER"

If you've arrived here via my HubPages "WordCrafter09" profile or from any of my pen-name pages here's a link to a blog that I set up as I was making the transition from a long-time, well established, pen-name to using my own name. Until very recently I've linked from my "WordCrafter09" profile to the blog, but since I've made substantial progress with the transition I decided to de-emphasize that blog (while still making a link to it available - at least for awhile longer).

It's not so much "blog" as it is part dumping ground and part explanation. In any case, here's the link (for now, anyway...):